Is traditional wisdom key to combating climate change?
Farmers have been known to observe the movement of ants and butterflies to forecast rainfall. Do such indigenous practices hold the key to addressing climate change issues?
A woman draws water from a 'taanka' in Rajasthan (Source: Wikipedia)
Budget needs to protect food security
Budgetary support needs to be upped for the implementation of the public distribution system entitlements under the National Food Security Act.
Children at an anganwadi centre, Mysore waiting for the mid-day meal
Can Budget 2016-17 breathe life into the public health system?
Budget asks include the upping of health spending, passing new health policies and involving civil society among other things.
Measuring for malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh (Source: Russell Watkins, Wikimedia Commons)
Is Pumpkart streamlining an unorganised sector?
An e-commerce platform selling water pumps has big plans for India but will they be able to buck the trend of incurring heavy losses that other online stores face?
Agriculture is the biggest segment for pumping industry.
Agriculture and informal sector labour need a budgetary push
What initiatives should the 2016-17 budget include for the agriculture sector? ActionAid India’s submission to the Ministry of Finance looks at these.
A farmer in Jhansi, Bundelkhand
Gender and water use: Looking beyond pure data
While generating gender disaggregated data, it is important to explore how to represent the gendered worlds and experiences of men and women at the smallest geographical unit--the household.
Gender and water use (Source: India Water Portal)
Development or drastic ecological changes: Where is Dehradun headed?
Inspite of Dehradun being declared as an Ecologically Sensitive Zone 30 years ago, we couldn’t safeguard its fragility. Will the so called 'Smart City Plan' by UHUDA really help?
The changing face of Dehradun (Source: Wikipedia)
Echoes of Bhakra
Oustees of one of the highest gravity dams of the world fear yet another displacement--50 years after the first one.
Bhakra dam (Source: Apar Singh Bataan, Wikimedia Commons)
Unnatural world: National parks and climate change
Poachers, citizens and sometimes animals themselves are threats to the parks but the biggest new threat is climate change. Do our national parks stand a chance of surviving it?
A herd of elephants cross the Ramganga river at Corbett National Park
Water and sanitation sector needs a budget push
Better regulation and transparency is needed in the WASH sector to ensure that India meets its Swachh Bharat Mission targets, as well as the Sustainable Development Goals.
Handwashing at a Karnataka school
The paradox of poor sanitation in India
Scholars of development are puzzled that other regions where people are poorer, literacy rates lower, and drinking water more scarce, are better off that India when it comes to open defecation.
The open defecation puzzle in India (Source: Sourabh Phadke)
Pumping up hopes the solar way
What will it take for the Haryana government to switch 7 lakh groundwater pumps to solar powered options so it can lower its energy footprint and contain losses in the energy sector?
Better incentives needs to be provided to farmers to use solar pumps for tubewells in Haryana
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